Word of Warning When Registering Extra Domain Names

Aug 16, 2010, 10:35 PM -05:00

During a recent audit, we noticed one of the Internet domain names registered to the bank was displaying a website provided by the registrar (Network Solutions). Upon discussing this issue with the bank, they told me they had registered the name because they use it internally as their Active Directory domain name and did not want anybody else registering the public name. So the bank’s IT vendor dutifully registered the name, but did not do anything with it as far as pointing it to an existing bank website or an “under construction” site. As a result the registrar parked the domain name and displayed an advertisement website. The advertisements were for Gucci, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, etc. The bank was not very happy when they found out their domain was being used to advertise other banks.